


Impact

by draculard



Series: Comfortween [18]
Category: Star Wars: Thrawn Series - Timothy Zahn (2017)
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Aftermath of Violence, F/M, Head Injury, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Torture, Interrogation, Set between Alliances and Treason but like totally throws canon out the window, Thrawn Needs a Hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-18
Updated: 2020-10-18
Packaged: 2021-03-08 17:07:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,068
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27090205
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/draculard/pseuds/draculard
Summary: Thrawn's been at the Imperial Palace consulting with Emperor Palpatine for an entire month when he finally comms Faro and asks for her assistance.
Relationships: Karyn Faro/Thrawn | Mitth'raw'nuruodo
Series: Comfortween [18]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1946224
Comments: 6
Kudos: 56
Collections: Comfortween 2020





	Impact

Faro was off-duty and watching the HoloNews when the comm came through. She glanced at her comlink, eyebrows raising at the name scrolling across the screen. She hadn’t heard from Thrawn in nearly a month — he’d been pulled away from Seventh Fleet weeks ago to consult with the Emperor, leaving the Chimaera in her hands and the fleet under the guidance of Grand Admiral Faxon, who generally couldn’t be bothered to give orders.

Faro thumbed her comlink on and held it to her lips, her eyes still on the HoloNews.

“Commodore Faro, sir,” she said.

“Commodore,” Thrawn greeted her. His voice was warped by poor reception, making him sound painfully hoarse. “You’ve heard about the travel embargo, I assume.”

Faro eyed the HoloNews. It was all they’d been talking about all day — the alleged terrorist attack on Imperial Center (though anchors stressed, without offering any proof or detail, that the attack had failed) meant no one could come in or out of Coruscant without express permission from the Imperial government.

“I’ve seen it,” she confirmed. 

There was a faint sigh over the comm, crackling into static.

“Well,” said Thrawn, and Faro couldn’t help but smile at the open irritation in his voice, “incidentally, the Emperor has decided today he is no longer in need of my services. I’ve been instructed to return to the Chimaera.”

Faro’s smile slipped away. Ordinarily, this would be no problem; with Admiral Faxon barely showing any leadership skills this month, the Chimaera had remained in the Core, jumping in to assist other fleets whenever necessary. If it weren’t for the travel embargo, Thrawn could simply hire a commercial shuttle somewhere on Coruscant, alert Faro that he was on his way, and come to meet his ship at one of the various stations proliferating throughout Core space.

With the travel embargo in place, though…

“You need someone to come pick you up, sir?” Faro asked, already reaching for her boots.

“Not _someone_ ,” Thrawn said. “Imperial personnel of any rank are, for the most part, permitted to travel in Coruscanti space, but only flag officers have clearance to land at the Imperial Palace docks at the moment. It will have to be you, Commodore.”

He said it so heavily that Faro couldn’t help but roll her eyes. He acted like it was torture to ask her for a simple favor. “Are the public docks not in use, sir?” she asked, more out of curiosity than anything. She was already pulling her uniform back on. “You could always wait there and—”

“No,” said Thrawn sharply, startling Faro into silence. She blinked at her comm for a moment; apparently, it really _was_ torture to ask her, though why, she couldn’t say. “I will be waiting at the Imperial Palace docks,” Thrawn continued, his voice scarcely any softer. “I’ll see you when you land. Thrawn out.”

He ended the call before Faro had a chance to respond. She stared at her comm another moment, unable to figure out his sudden shift in tone. 

Thrawn always seemed a little _off_ when he came back from his consultations with the Emperor, Faro told herself eventually, stuffing her comlink in her pocket. He always came back a little quieter than usual — a little more formal and distant — and it typically took him a few days to loosen up and become his regular self. The difference between meeting-with-the-Emperor Thrawn and commanding-the-Chimaera Thrawn was small, but noticeable. Perhaps, having spent an entire month at Imperial Center, things were just a little worse than usual.

Faro was still trying to convince herself that was all it was as she called the hangar bay to have a private shuttle prepared.

* * *

It was the middle of Coruscant’s carefully climate-controlled winter, and a light lab-made snow was falling by the time Faro landed her shuttle at her assigned port on the Imperial Palace’s docks. She’d commed Thrawn on her way down, and he was already standing under the awning when she landed — she could see him through the viewport wearing only his uniform, his shoulders hunched against the cold.

He’d been here on Imperial Center for a whole month, she noticed, and yet he had no luggage except his datapad carrier. 

She hit the release button for the ramp and kept her eyes forward as Thrawn circled the shuttle, moving out of sight. Her communicator was open, so she listened idly to the control station chatter as Thrawn came aboard, retracting the ramp and shutting the hatch behind him.

Faro was calculating their journey back to the Chimaera — taking Coruscanti traffic into account — when Thrawn entered the cockpit and tossed his datapad carrier down onto the seat next to her. It was obviously almost empty; if he’d stuffed extra clothes or toiletries into it, it would have been bulging, but instead, the cloth sagged against the corners of his datapad, making it clear there was nothing else inside. Faro glanced up at him and felt a greeting die on her lips.

Thrawn had lost weight since the last time she’d seen him; she wouldn’t be surprised to find out he’d been so busy this past month that he hadn’t had time to sleep, work out, or even eat regularly. His cheekbones stood out starkly — and so did the fresh, livid bruises painted over them and the red-tinted scrapes of raw skin at his temples and on his jaw; it looked almost as if his own bones had pierced through his skin and left him wounded.

His expression was tired but emotionless as he leaned over the back of the copilot’s seat, busying himself with the clasps on his datapad carrier. His left eye was hooded; his right eye was bloodshot and discolored.

He looked positively battered. Faro stared at him for a moment in disbelief, unsure what to say. 

“Thank you for coming,” he said without glancing her way. His voice sent a jolt through Faro; it sounded rough as sandpaper, like something in his throat had collapsed. She’d thought it was just static messing with his voice over the comlink, but no — that was really how he sounded.

She eyed his injuries closely, trying to gauge how fresh they were. After a moment, tentatively, she said, “You didn’t tell me you were involved in the terrorist attack, sir.”

Thrawn’s eyes shifted toward her. He gave a soft snort and then winced, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I wasn’t,” he said. “The so-called terrorists were subdued long before they reached the palace. This travel embargo is more of a political tactic than anything; the Emperor hopes it will increase tensions in the Mid Rim and perhaps incite some more overt maneuvers from the Rebel cells there. For now, he's...” Thrawn paused; Faro couldn't be sure if he was hesitating or if he'd lost his train of thought, but both options sent a flare of alarm through her. "...he's blaming Alderaan," Thrawn finished, his voice subdued.

There was a brief silence as Faro processed that. She reached forward, turning the radio down until she could barely hear the control station chatter. Out of the corner of her eye, she studied Thrawn and his bruised face.

“What happened?” she asked.

Thrawn blinked; she watched his eyelashes stick briefly to a still-bloody scrape beneath his eye. “What’s our ETA?” he asked, as if she hadn’t spoken.

Faro glanced at the readout. “Traffic’s awful on the way out,” she said. “Looks like about eight hours, taking customs into account.”

Thrawn accepted this news without a change in expression, but his already-weary posture seemed to slump. He looked down at his hands — and Faro noticed, much to her confusion, that unlike his face, his hands weren’t bruised at all. His knuckles weren’t bloody or broken; his nails were clean and neatly-trimmed. There were no scratches or scrapes to be seen.

She looked at him sharply, unable to reconcile his unwounded hands with what she saw on his face. Thrawn had been attacked, or had perhaps taken a loss in a violent sparring match — that much was clear from the bruises and flecks of blood still scattered across his cheeks. But he hadn’t defended himself?

Thrawn must have seen her watching him, but he didn’t glance her way. His chest rose and fell in a heavy sigh as he stared down at the displays.

“You are comfortable piloting the shuttle for eight hours?” he asked neutrally.

Faro blinked at him, then down at the controls. “Of course,” she said. “It’s mostly autopilot from here on out anyway, sir.”

Thrawn nodded absently, as if he’d expected no other answer. He pushed away from the copilot’s chair.

“In that case,” he said, “I need to sleep. Commodore.”

Faro raised her head, waiting for orders, and only realized that Thrawn was saying her title as an informal goodbye — not as a prelude to a command — when he turned and left the cockpit. 

Who could have attacked him at the Imperial Palace? Faro flexed her hands on the pilot chair armrests, thinking it through. She steered the shuttle away from the docks and into Coruscant’s air space a moment later, listening with half an ear to the radio chatter and with the other half to the sounds Thrawn made as he unfolded a bunk in the shuttle’s troop transport behind her.

When the shuttle was slotted into line behind a million other outbound flights, Faro hit the auto controls and sat back in her seat, eyeing Thrawn’s almost-empty datapad carrier. She glanced over her shoulder at the open hatchway, but couldn’t see Thrawn — which meant he couldn’t see her. Quietly, she reached across to the other seat and flipped his carrier open, peeking inside.

She was right; there were no personal items inside, just Thrawn’s datapad. He _must_ have brought extra clothes with him, but apparently, he’d left them all behind. It was as if he’d received the order to leave from the Emperor and then had commed Faro immediately, waiting outside in the snow for her to arrive instead of going back to his quarters to pack.

 _Had_ he done that?

Why _would_ he? He'd insisted she meet him at the Imperial Palace docks, not the public ones, and at first Faro had assumed this was because he didn't want to wait in the snow. But he'd done that anyway, so maybe he'd only wished to avoid images of his battered face ending up on the HoloNet. Still, why run from the Palace without his clothes? Why wait on the snow-covered docks when he could wait inside?

The answers were obvious, but they weren't ones that Faro wanted to consider. Her mind danced around them nervously, refusing to think about them; Vader's dark form and the Emperor's face popped in her mind, but she refused to think too deeply about them, searching for other options.

Faro drummed her fingers on the console, biting her lip. After a moment, she unbuckled her harness and crossed to the open hatchway. 

“Sir?” she said.

Thrawn wasn't sleeping. He was leaning against the wall near his bunk, still fully dressed, his eyes fixed unseeing on the floor. His hand was over his mouth, and when he glanced up at Faro, she saw that he was absent-mindedly biting his knuckles, a habit of either nervousness or discomfort that she’d never seen from him before. 

“I thought you were going to catch some sleep,” said Faro, narrowing her eyes.

Thrawn glanced at his bunk. He’d found bedding in storage somewhere and dumped it on the mattress, but hadn’t bothered to make it up. Looking somewhat distracted, he moved his hand away from his mouth and ran it through his hair instead, stopping to feel the back of his head. His eyes flickered toward the door.

“...a bit distracted,” he said.

Faro couldn’t be sure whether she simply hadn’t heard the first few words of that sentence or if Thrawn had forgotten to say them. She narrowed her eyes even further and approached him, motioning for him to turn around. When he didn’t seem to notice her gesture, she put her hands on his shoulders and guided him gently away from the wall.

“Let me take a look,” she said, dropping the honorific.

Thrawn removed his hand from the back of his head and tilted his chin up so she could get a better view. There was a spot on the back of his head where the hair seemed wet and darker than normal, and when Faro touched it, her fingertips came back tacky and smeared with red. She used both hands to part the wet patch of hair so she could see how deep the gash was.

“You need _stitches_ ,” she said, her voice sharp as she saw his skin gaping open. “How the hell did this happen?” 

Thrawn swept a hand over his hair, casually batting Faro’s hand away in the process. “It doesn’t need stitches,” he said dismissively. 

“Oh, I’m sorry, sir,” said Faro, smacking his hand away. “Have _you_ taken a look at it? Because I am _currently_ looking at it, and you _definitely_ need stitches.”

“I just need sleep,” Thrawn said. Faro stepped to the side and glanced at his face, a little alarmed when she saw his eyes drifting closed.

“Surely you know how bad of an idea that is,” she said. “Here. Look.”

She rubbed a strand of bloody hair between her fingers and then held her hand out to Thrawn so he could see. His eyes narrowed; once again, he touched the back of his head, and this time he actually succeeded in finding the wound. 

He studied the blood on his fingers with a blank face.

“When did you get injured?” Faro asked him, trying not to sound as concerned as she felt.

“Ah…” said Thrawn, not glancing up. 

When the hesitation just went on, Faro touched Thrawn’s shoulder again and guided him back onto the mattress. He sat down, blinking up at her with open curiosity on his face, as if he couldn’t imagine why she thought he should be sitting.

“Just a few hours,” he said, entirely too late for Faro’s comfort. “It’s not a serious wound.”

“Yeah … okay,” said Faro. She eyed the bruises and scrapes on Thrawn’s face for a moment, her hands flexing into fists at her side. “Okay,” she said again. “I’m going to go get the first-aid kit. I’ll be right back.”

Thrawn nodded, but Faro was already turning away. Every Imperial shuttle came with a fully-stocked battlefield kit; she knelt down against the opposite bulkhead and opened the storage locker beneath the folded-up seats there, pulling out a plastisteel lockbox that was so heavy it dragged against the floor. 

Luckily, despite its size, it was well-organized, and Faro was intimately familiar with battlefield medkits. She located the zip-stitches immediately, then grabbed the alcohol swabs and turned back to Thrawn…

...who had slumped over sideways on the bunk and was now lying with his eyes closed and his arms crossed over his chest. 

“ _Sir_ ,” Faro snapped, jumping to her feet. Thrawn pushed himself up immediately at the sound of her voice and blinked at her, supporting himself on the mattress with an outstretched hand. He scrubbed his face with the other hand, as if he’d been asleep for hours instead of a few seconds. As Faro came up beside him, he straightened, freeing up space on the mattress next to him so she could sit.

“You’re supposed to stay awake,” said Faro with a scowl.

Thrawn nodded wearily and turned at the waist, giving her access to the wound at the back of his head. Faro opened the packet of alcohol swabs and set to work cleaning the gash — and wiping the blood out of his hair, while she was at it.

“You didn’t tell me how you got injured,” she said as she opened the zip-stitches.

Thrawn sighed heavily in response. Faro waited for an answer, but when she didn’t get one, she brushed his hair away from the gash and grabbed his hand, guiding it up so he could hold his hair in place for her while she worked. Thrawn let her guide him, holding his hair back obediently while she set the stitches in place.

She watched his skin knit itself together beneath the zip.

“Five minutes for the bacta to take effect,” Faro told him, setting a timer on her chrono. “I’m going to get you some stims, okay?”

Thrawn made a disapproving sound — she knew how he felt about stims — but didn’t actually argue with her. 

“Stand up,” Faro said, tapping him on the shoulder as she slipped off the bed. “I don’t want you falling asleep on me.”

Thrawn nodded and got to his feet while she rooted around in the medkit again. He was leaning against the wall with his eyes closed when Faro found the stims and loaded up a syringe. She stuck him in the neck without warning him, and Thrawn, to his credit, didn’t even flinch; he opened his eyes and watched her face with disinterest as she pushed the plunger.

She took a deep breath and tried to pretend her heart wasn't pounding in her chest from what she was about to ask.

“Was it Darth Vader?” she said semi-casually, disposing of the needle.

Thrawn rubbed his neck where she’d given him the injection. “No,” he said simply, his voice a bit dull. “It’s not important.”

Faro gave him a sharp look. “Of course it is.”

He gave her a sharp look back. “It was a mission gone somewhat awry,” he said firmly. “Now drop it, Commodore. That’s an order.”

Faro bit her tongue, settling for a glare. Her heart was still pounding, and now her limbs felt a little shaky as well as the implications of Thrawn's order set in. She could tell he was lying when he said he'd been wounded on a mission, and he could only be telling her to drop it because he didn't want any negative consequences blowing back on her. She found herself thinking of the Emperor — by all accounts, a kindly old man who’d been in politics since well before the Clone Wars. If Darth Vader hadn’t been the one to harm Thrawn, then who did?

She shook the thought away as her timer went off. Thrawn turned around at once, giving her access to the wound on the back of his head again, and Faro plucked the stitches out one by one. 

“Thank you,” Thrawn said while his back was turned.

Faro paused, then brushed his hair back down over the wound. “It’s nothing,” she said. She tossed the stitches in the shuttle’s waste bin, then crossed to the fresher, leaving the door open as she washed her hands. “Come up to the cockpit with me,” she said. “I need to make sure you stay awake for a while yet.”

Thrawn obeyed without argument; he even led the way, dropping into the copilot’s seat and taking out his datapad in one graceful move. He turned the screen on, winced when the light hit his eyes, and turned it back off again.

“You alright?” Faro asked, folding herself into the pilot’s seat.

Thrawn cut his eyes her way with an almost sardonic expression. There was a long pause where neither of them said anything; Faro drummed her fingers on the console and avoided Thrawn’s gaze, trying to force herself not to worry about him, to think of anything other than what he’d evidently gone through in the past month.

There was a sour taste in her mouth. She glanced at him again, saw the glazed look in his eyes, the untreated cuts on his cheekbones and lips.

“You shouldn’t have to…” Faro started, and bit her tongue. 

Thrawn blinked, his eyes flickering uncomfortably over the console. His shoulders tensed almost unnoticeably as he waited for her to finish. Faro hesitated, trying to think of something else, something more acceptable to say.

“What did you say to piss him off?” she decided on.

Thrawn’s face twitched, caught between two different expressions. “We shouldn’t speak about it, Commodore,” he said, his lips barely moving. He didn’t meet her eyes; instead, he stared out the viewport, at the traffic all around them.

“Why not?” Faro asked. “You think the Emperor’s just happened to bug every shuttle in the Navy?”

Thrawn glanced at her out of the corner of his eye, his face frozen. He gave a minute shake of his head, but something about his expression opened up a pit of nervousness inside Faro’s stomach, and she turned away.

She looked at the traffic. She turned back to him, caught a subdued look on Thrawn’s face.

“You left your clothes behind…?” she said, unsure how she wanted to say it or whether it was really what she wanted to ask.

“I…” Thrawn started. His fingers clenched reflexively on his datapad; she watched as he forced himself to relax his grip. “I realized there wasn’t much I needed to take with me,” he said.

Faro nodded, biting her lip again. To her, this seemed as good as confirmation that she was right — Thrawn had sustained his injuries only an hour or so ago, and he’d commed her and left the palace immediately after, not bothering to pack.

“Did he really dismiss you?” she asked, lowering her voice by instinct, for reasons she couldn’t name. "Or did you...?"

She couldn't bring herself to finish the sentence; even suggesting that Thrawn had run from the Emperor seemed distasteful to her. In any case, Thrawn nodded jerkily to the first question, confirming that he'd been dismissed but not meeting her gaze. Faro gave him a quick, appraising look, taking in his weight loss and the bags beneath his eyes. 

“Whatever happened today…” Faro started, hesitating over what to say.

“It was Batuu,” Thrawn said, his voice rough, his tone firm. His fingers tightened on the datapad again; his eyes went cold. “This month … it’s been about Batuu.”

Faro went still, a chill spreading over her body as she remembered Vader’s menacing comments — the Chiss girls — the conversations Thrawn had gone through even back then, behind closed doors. She glanced at Thrawn again, taking in the hardness in his eyes, the thin line of his lips.

“He wanted to test your loyalty?” Faro asked, each word coming out tentative and slow. Thrawn turned away from her, feigning interest in the displays to his side.

“Let’s not discuss it,” he said evenly, without meeting her eyes.

Faro turned back to the viewport. “Okay,” she said, dimming the transparisteel until nobody could see inside. “Let’s not.”

She studied what she could see of Thrawn’s face — mostly his jawline, and she could tell he was gritting his teeth. He didn’t respond when she touched his shoulder; it was like he couldn’t even feel her hand.

“Turn around?” said Faro softly.

Thrawn turned to her at once, his face unreadable, like stone. His eyes shifted everywhere but never quite met hers.

“Yes?” he said, voice steady, calm.

Faro put her other hand on his shoulder, too. She watched his gaze flicker over to the transparisteel; his expression changed subtly when he saw that she’d dimmed it, taking on an edge of trepidation.

Without a word, Faro pulled him into a hug. 

Thrawn went still, his shoulders stiff, his back tense beneath her hands. For a long moment, he didn’t lean into her embrace — either refusing to or simply unable to process what she was doing; Faro couldn’t tell. But when he did finally move forward, he didn’t so much return the hug as he crumbled into it, burying his face in her shoulder and wrapping his arms around her until their chests were pressed together and Faro’s knees were bent awkwardly against the edge of the chair.

She could feel his slow, even breathing against her chest and held him closer, leaning into the warmth, into the firmness of his body against hers. She felt Thrawn’s fingers curl loosely in her uniform, pulling her closer as well.

Neither of them spoke. When Faro lifted her hand, tangling her fingers in Thrawn’s hair, he only hummed softly and let her, not pulling away. 

_Seven more hours until we reach the Chimaera,_ Faro thought.

And then, with a viciousness and determination that surprised her:

_We’re never coming back to Coruscant again._


End file.
